The Internet Travel Guide "Getting to Know Cuba"

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Film

The Cubans are very fond of movies. Especially on weekends, they stand in endless lines in front of the box offices. There is a broad range of international films to choose from, most of them are dubbed into Spanish. Since 1959, the production of Cuban films has experienced a rapid upturn. As early as in the years following the revolution, directors and producers began to portray the Cuban reality with cinematic means. They did not take common Hollywood patterns as a model but tried to set the focus on history, culture, and specific problems of the Cuban and Latin American population, e.g. in Lucía (1968), El Retrato de Teresa (1979), El brigadista (1977). However, the Cubans complain about the decreasing quality of film productions. The films have gradually departed from social reality. There is talk of self-censorship, of dogmatism with respect to content, and of formal inadequacy. As a reaction to this, in 1986 an international film school was established in San Antonio de los Baños in the province of Havana. This school is autonomous and therefore not under the control of the ministry of education.

"The Survivors" by Tomas Gutierrez Alea and Antonio Benitez Rojo.

In 1993, the film Fresa y Chocolate by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío was shot in Cuba and won the jury's special prize at the 1994 Berlin Film Festival (Berlinale). The light but also serious comedy is about David, at the beginning an orthodox revolutionist, the non-conformist homosexual Diego, and his neighbor Nancy who have developed their own way to fiddle through everyday life between loyalty to the party line and the black market. The movie is more than a thrilling triangle story. Filled with critical allusions to contemporary Cuba, it plays amusingly with the dreams of a new society and has been received enthusiastically even on the island itself.


International Festival of the New Latin-American Film
Since 1979, the annual Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano (the International Festival of the New Latin-American Film) takes place in Cuba. It has become the decisive forum of the Cuban film.